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Lena throws her head back and feels whiskey hit her throat, soft and burning. It’s muscle memory by now. In a bar decked out in overhead lights and tinged with tinny soundwaves, every time she shuts her eyes she sees orange-red. Lena is bathed in neon. If she remains still she can almost hear that ‘90s song in the background, see that girl in the corner booth.
In flashes, the girl returns.
Kara was there once, sitting in the back ー Kara with the messy ponytails, loops of blonde sticking out; Kara who bit her lip and then leaned in to bite Lena’s ー “yeah, is this okay?” she’d asked the first time;
“darling, do you want this?” she’d say in the parking lot, leading Lena to her car; sometimes her feet would drag and they’d dance clumsily between painted white lines;
“darling, darling, darrrrrling,” she drawled during two-AMs that don’t belong to Lena anymore;
and then “no, no, you misunderstand, I love you” would only slip out at four, when Kara’s hands framed Lena’s face and pulled her in just like the very first time.
She could see Kara in the vinyl-y booth, arms resting on the backs of faded chairs.
It had been Kara with her once. Now Lena’s drinking with Tim the bartender. He isn’t so much a friend as he is a recipient of tips and tipsy thank-yous. A pourer of white wine. And of Jack Daniels afterward, when she doesn’t want the silver linings of silver liquid on her tongue; no, no, she drinks Jack when she needs her blood to turn amber.
Well, more like drank Jack. It’s a new week. Early March, when her flimsy new year’s resolutions are finally taking root. She’s trying to cut back. She’s tried before.
She’s tired, has been for five months since Kara slipped between her fingers and out the door. Lena was never able to catch her. Lena has no clue how she caught Kara in the first place.
Lena knows well enough not to keep drinking (Kara had had a whole schpiel about liver and kidney function back when this was their place) so Lena just shuts her eyes, letting neon wash her away. She hears Tim walk near and, eyes open again, she shakes her head. Not this time.
Lena’s probably become somebody else by now 一 anyone else would be, Kara must be 一 what’s it all for? Where’s the grand plan?
Lena used to see the two of them ending up together. Now she’s just seeing double.
“I loved you once, you know.” The words are acidic in her mouth; tends to happen after they burn out. Lena’d only said it to Kara’s face one time, on a FaceTime call connecting the two between coasts, and the sentence made her throat hurt then, too. Those words were ancient. It was a last-ditch attempt to salvage the pieces of effort to salvage their relationship from the gallows. Lena doesn’t know what she was thinking (“no, you loved her,” a younger version of herself tells her, an angel perched on her shoulder. But Lena-at-thirty-six knows better. Even through dizzy fog, she knows better.)
Lena remembers tucking stray blonde hairs behind Kara’s ear, and orders a virgin drink from Tim. He nods; he knows Lena well. It’s been months since they met, and although he isn’t her best friend he’s the most well-equipped. Doesn’t judge. Doesn’t bet money on the notion that she and Kara’ll get back together (thanks a lot for your emotional support, Kelly.)
Oh, it’s not Kelly’s fault.
It might not be Lena’s. To double check she’d have to flip through her Google calendar, and her red-string-theory-board, and the map of the town that Kara left haunted.
Fuck. She should’ve just turned into bed early instead of driving out here to the bar, The Great Beyond, to say hey and good evenin’ to the regulars. Tim probably groaned when he saw her. Marcie in the corner cheered gently when she walked in. Lena always dances with her when it’s eleven and they don’t wanna go home yet. And then there’s Lucas, about to get his first tattoo, and Connor who keeps his guitar in the backseat. Just in case he figures out the bridge of the song he’s been writing since last year, y’know. He and Tim came up with the chorus together.
Connor won’t tell you he plays but he can sing you a story, rock you to sleep, take you on an old-timer’s tour of dreamland. Lena’s been before. She’s seen the milestones and skipped them across the pond. The road on the way there’s a little rocky, but it’s nothing she can’t handle.
Ashley sits front and center, welcoming the warm glow of orange light. Steph tilts back in her chair and offers once again to braid Ashley’s hair, or perhaps Lena’s. Steph had been laid off from the beauty salon last month. No luck since.
Lena said yes once, on a Saturday when she found an old receipt from the time she and Kara went and got ice cream at Braum’s, and Steph wiped her tears away with a ratty napkin before twisting Lena’s hair into a Celtic knot.
“No, I’m Irish,” Lena blurted, “and I dunno if I’m a Celt-”
Steph laughed. “Who’ll ever know ‘cept for you?” She reached into Lena’s hands and un-crumpled the Braum’s receipt, even if it covered her thumbs in carbon-copy soot. They read it out loud (“really? your girl ordered cherry amaretto? sheesh!”) and made sure Lena was alright before tearing it into strips at the end of the night. Ashley flicked her lighter on and set the paper afire in the ashtray.
Thank goodness for them.
Lucas, itching at the collar of his starch-stiff red flannel, walks to pick up his drink and says hello. He still insists on calling her Miss Luthor, like she’s his English teacher or something.
Connor starts singing from a scrap of a sentence, a throwaway line from Lucas. Tim walks to the piano and plucks out a nervous tune, correcting his flat notes with ones too sharp. Lena winces. That keyboard needed tuning ten years ago.
But in a minute she’ll be singing along. She can’t quite tell if Connor’s making this song up as he goes. He sings about grasslands and connects it to a metaphor of white picket fences, then mending fences, and mending hearts with thread and needle. Lena feels her cheeks turn pink from the sheer warmth of her grin.
Connor’s kind. He hits the curb when he tries to park his car, and Tim’s been showing him how to do it but lessons are either not very long or not very effective. Perhaps both? Lena would offer to help but she fears that he’d take one good look at her and see a bunch of dollar signs.
Her last name is heavy on other people’s tongues.
Lena thought about changing it if she ever married Kara. It doesn’t matter now. For a few weeks, false hope was sweet, at least. That’s all she could ask for.
Connor starts another song. He told Lena he got his first gray hair last week but no one can tell beneath these lights, not when he’s bobbing his head next to Lucas, who’s pretending to drum out a beat on the table with his palms. Lena wonders if that hurts.
If it does, she can’t tell.